Sign of the times

I meant to write about this a while ago, but was kind of busy at the time. A few months ago, I needed to go to Loughborough for work purposes, and decided to travel by train. This entailed taking a train from my neck of the woods, and meeting a colleague at Birmingham New Street station, where I would change trains before continuing on my journey.

New Street station has ticket barriers where people in yellow jackets check that you actually hold a valid ticket (there has long been a history of fare dodgers on the cross-city lines). I was about to leave the platform area to go and buy a coffee and something for breakfast, when I was stopped by one of the coppers who were in attendance.

PC Plod explained that he and his colleagues were randomly stopping people under the terms of anti-terrorism legislation, I wasn't being targeted and would I mind answering some questions and if he had a look in my bag?

Not being in a position to argue, I politely agreed. PC Plod was quite agreeable, he noted down my appearance and asked about what I was doing today, he then had a quick glance at the contents of my bag. To be honest, he seemed a bit embarrassed by the whole thing. PC Plod was a Sikh, with a beard and a turban. This actually reassured me - if it had been an officer of a different ethnicity, it would have been all too easy to think that they were only stopping me for being of Asian origin. He also said that he takes some (gentle) abuse from friends and family for the fact that he has to do this part of the job.

I wasn't about to complain - it is a sign of the times, and there is no point kicking up a fuss unless you want trouble. That doesn't mean I like it, or that I think it is fair. I do believe that I am more likely to be targeted for stop and search by virtue of my gender (male), age (late 20s) and skin colour (brown); this is in a similar way to the fact that on about half of my holidays with (white) friends or my girlfriend, they will often be quickly waved through at passport control, while I get a slightly sinister glare and often a couple of minutes of questioning about where I have been, what I was doing there and so on.

Am I paranoid? Maybe a little, but given the current climate of suspicion, can you blame me?

Rish's Holiday Diary - part 2

The saga continues:

Day 4: We went to the beach - well it is the done thing when on holiday on the Costa Blanca! Unfortunately the sun went in, so we ended up giving up and going home. When making dinner, I managed to slice my thumb open - luckily, it did not bleed too much, although I am sure it added a bit of flavour to the meal(!). Worse than the robbery, and the thumb injury, was the appearance of a cockroach in the flat that evening - urghh! I had no insect spray, but managed to make do with some air freshener. I cannot say for certain that the cockroach was dead when I expelled it from the flat, but it sure would have smelt citrus fresh!

Day 5: We went to the Police Station. Reassuringly, filing a Police report in Spain is much like in the UK; you wait around for ages, because there is only one officer taking reports, while about ten coppers stand around scratching their arses and going outside for a fag. After waiting for three hours, we eventually got it done. By then, we had to abandon our planned trip to Alicante. We got home to find three more cockroaches trying to get into the flat - still without insect spray, I found that furniture polish worked effectively - I never realised that Mr Sheen could multi-task!

Days 6 and 7: Went to Alicante. It was not very exciting. The next day we went to Murcia. It was better, but no-one spoke English, and having had our phrasebook stolen in the burglary, we struggled at times. The only person we found who spoke English was a Polish waitress, who remarked that it would be "easier to swim the ocean when you cannot swim, than it would be to spend time in Murcia without speaking Spanish". That told us! The waitress, Aleksandra, was lovely and a bit bonkers. Unfortunately I have lost the bit of paper which she wrote her email address on, so there is no chance of going for a barmy night out with her next time we go to Spain (not necessarily a bad thing - I have heard the Poles are crazy drinkers). I also discovered that the Matiz cannot make it past 65 mph without starting to shake!

Days 8 and 9: Pleasant days, spent at the beach. Lovely, but ruined by the sixty-something woman sunbathing topless nearby - yuck! The following day was packing up, featuring the heaviest hailstorm I have ever seen - it was like the sky was falling in, and I am glad we were indoors at the time. We unfortunately had to continue our battle against the cockroaches (now armed wth insect spray) and then the holiday ended as it began - with queues at the airport, and having to comply with the ridiculous situation of not being allowed to take a bottle of water on the plane with us.

This may sound a little ungrateful, as not everyone can afford to go on foreign holidays, but I didn't really enjoy myself much. Murcia was a good town, the beach was pleasant, it was great to not be at work, but a combination of robberies and cockroaches took the sheen off the holiday. Now I am just waiting to see if the insurance will pay up so we can get a new camera, and still paying off the hire of the crapmobile on my credit card...

Paddington Bear goes experimental

Have you seen the new ad for Marmite, featuring Paddington Bear? It is really quite amusing, in a nostalgic, understated kind of way:




The ad has caused consternation to some bear lovers, as shown in this article.

Creator Michael Bond was not involved in this ad, but reports that "although Paddington found the sandwiches interesting, bears are creatures of habit. It would require a good deal more than the combined current withdrawals from Northern Rock to wean him off marmalade, if then". A wonderfully measured response, I think (full story is here).

Rish's Holiday diary - part 1

For those of you not able to access me through Facebook, I have just come back from holiday in Spain. It was a bit of a mixed bag.

Day 1: Get on the bus, go to Birmingham airport. When we get there, two hours before the flight (as advised), the queues for check-in are mammoth. It turned out that the conveyor belts behind the check-in desks were broken. The airport had no contingency plan, so the poor check-in staff had to sit there smiling, until the belts worked again (which they did for about one out of every ten minutes). Obviously, no-one missed their flight as we were all in the same boat, but it was bit frustrating and absolutely astonishing that there was no contingency. The airport staff looked a bit hot and bothered, but the holidaymakers remained in surprisingly good spirits!

When we got to Murcia airport, I went to pick up the hire car - finding the collection point was not easy. I had a bit of trepidation about driving on "the other side" as I hadn't done it for about seven years - and that was in Canada, with big wide roads and in an automatic. This time, I was driving in a country with narrow streets, a different driving culture (the old "Latin temperament"), and most importantly, a gearstick on the other side to normal.

Actually, the main problem wasn't changing gear, or even trying to get in the passenger side by mistake (although the missus almost got in on the driver's side, which would be a disaster as she doesn't know how to drive) - it was simply that the Chevrolet Matiz (as pictured above) is like a tin-can with no steering! No reassuring clunk when you shut the door, more a light slap on metal on metal. It understeers horribly, even at very low speed. And it started to shake at 110km/h (about 70 mph). One of my colleagues says that her friends had one for a little while, and called it the "roller-skate". At least the air-con worked, as it was pretty warm out there...

Day 2: Our flat was very pleasant, and it was warm at night as well. On day 2, we shopped for some food and drink, and cleaned up the place (Spain can be dusty). A quiet, but pleasant day, where we sunbathed on the flat's roof terrace, explored the local area and cooked ourselves a chicken paella.

So far, so dull for you, dear reader - but read on...

Day 3: A little more exploring, and a bit more sunbathing. I popped out to the shops to buy some drinks, and left the missus sunbathing on the terrace. Later on, we were about to go out, so I went to grab the camera and my mobile phone. Oh, I must have left them somewhere else, or maybe the missus has moved them? She says that she didn't. The truth slowly dawned on me as I realised that the battery pack for the camera, which I had left charging, had also been unplugged and was missing, as was the missus' bag. I checked for any evidence, and found a footprint. The burglar must have waited until I went out, come upstairs, climbed over the railing and vaulted onto our balcony and into the living room. There they picked up whatever they could which was within snatching distance, and jumped back over, leaving dusty footprints on the balcony and on the railing. Bastardo.

It was Saturday, and we were advised by someone working in the complex that there was no point telling the police until Monday, as they would have an interpreter available then.

Day 4: We were not that upset, just annoyed. Things are, after all, replaceable, and at least our passports and tickets (locked up in another room) were safe. More importantly, the missus hadn't come across the burglar, as who knows what would have happened?

We bought a disposable camera, and I could live without my phone. We had already telephoned home to cancel my mobile and the missus' debit card. We decided to go to the beach, but unfortunately, as soon as we got there, the sun went in for the afternoon. Just our luck!

So we explored a bit, then went home and made dinner, where I promptly added a bit of flavour by slicing my thumb open while chopping vegetables. Luckily it didn't bleed too much and I had remembered to pack the first aid kit. Still, a perfect end to the perfect weekend...

Caught by the fuzz

The Police have reformed for a series of reunion gigs. They recently visited the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham. My friends Mohan tried to get tickets, he asked if I wanted to get one, but I replied that £100 a ticket was just too expensive.

In a bizarre twist of fate, I ended up going anyway - Mohan's companion for the evening pulled out at the very last moment, and so I was offered the ticket (which had already been paid for).

The support band sounded, well, just like The Police. I actually described them as 90% The Police, and 10% Foo Fighters. Actually not a bad combination! I heard a rumour that the singer/bass player is actually Sting's son, which would explain why he has a similar bass playing style and very similar voice.

Onto the main attraction, the three old fellas came on and started with the brilliant "Message in a bottle". They moved onto "Synchronicity", and then played a handful of songs that I didn't know. The higlight of the set for me was "Every little thing she does is magic", which is far from my favourite Police song, but was performed with real gusto.

Apparently, when introducing a record by The Police, Alan Partridge said, "And now a record by The Police, or as they are now known, Sting". This was the trouble with this gig - Sting dominated it with his ridiculous vocal crooning, stopping at least 40% of songs for a croon break which made said songs twice as long and made the set drag on. Sting and Stewart Copeland looked bored for the most part, Andy Summers did seem to be having fun, but also played his part by playing too many overly long and widdly guitar solos.

It seems ridiculous that songs as dark as "Roxanne" and the fabulous "Can't stand losing you" can be reduced to parody by the singer stopping the song to sing "Roxanne-ohh" or "Ee-ohh" for a number of pointless minutes. On top of that, the band committed what I regard as something of a cardinal sin - they used backing tracks for the additional vocals.

I hope other people enjoyed the gig more than I did - they paid enough for the tickets! If I had paid £100 for that, I would have felt cheated - the impression that band gave is that they were in for the £££.

As a footnote - my favourite story about the band dates back to the mid-1980s, when the feuding between band members was at its height. Apparently Stewart Copeland took to writing a single word on each of his four drum skins. From left to right, it read "STING" "IS" "A" ... and I am sure you can make decent guess at the fourth word (clue: it is widely regarded as being the worst word in the English language).

Get well soon

One of the most under-rated singing bass players of this generation, Mick Quinn of Supergrass, has bizarrely broken his back. The full story is here, but in brief, it seems as though he sleepwalked through a first story window. Ouch.

Get well soon Mickey.